The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath

In 2006, Ben S. Bernanke was appointed chair of the Federal Reserve, capping a meteoric trajectory from a rural South Carolina childhood to professorships at Stanford and Princeton, to public service in Washington's halls of power. There would be no time to celebrate, however - the burst of the housing bubble in 2007 set off a domino effect that would bring the global financial system to the brink of meltdown.

The Map and the Territory: Risk, Human Nature, and the Future of Forecasting

Like all of us, though few so visibly, Alan Greenspan was forced by the financial crisis of 2008 to question some fundamental assumptions about risk management and economic forecasting. No one with any meaningful role in economic decision making in the world saw beforehand the storm for what it was. How had our models so utterly failed us? To answer this question, Alan Greenspan embarked on a rigorous and far-reaching multiyear examination of how Homo economicus predicts the economic future, and how it can predict it better.

The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan

Sebastian Mallaby's magisterial biography of Alan Greenspan, the product of over five years of research based on untrammeled access to his subject and his closest professional and personal intimates, brings into vivid focus the mysterious point where the government and the economy meet. To understand Greenspan's story is to see the economic and political landscape of the last 30 years - and the presidency, from Reagan to George W. Bush - in a whole new light.

America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve

Until the election of Woodrow Wilson the United States - alone among developed nations - lacked a central bank. Ever since the Revolutionary War, Americans had desperately feared the consequences of centralizing the nation's finances under government control. However, in the aftermath of a disastrous financial panic, Congress was persuaded - by a confluence of populist unrest, widespread mistrust of bankers, ideological divisions, and secretive lobbying - to approve the landmark 1913 Federal Reserve Act.

Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises

On January 26, 2009, during the depth of the financial crisis and having just completed five years as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy F. Geithner was sworn in by President Barack Obama as the 75th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. Now, in a strikingly candid, riveting, and historically illuminating memoir, Geithner takes listeners behind the scenes during the darkest moments of the crisis.

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management

When Genius Failed is the cautionary financial tale of our time, the gripping saga of what happened when an elite group of investors believed they could actually deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth. In Roger Lowenstein's hands, it is a brilliant tale peppered with fast money, vivid characters, and high drama.

A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II

In what is sure to become the standard account, Rothbard traces inflations, banking panics, and money meltdowns from the colonial period through the mid-20th century to show how government's systematic war on sound money is the hidden force behind nearly all major economic calamities in American history. Never has the story of money and banking been told with such rhetorical power and theoretical vigor. You will treasure this volume.

Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

Starting from scratch, simply by picking stocks and companies for investment, Warren Buffett amassed one of the epochal fortunes of the twentieth century - an astounding net worth of $10 billion and counting. His awesome investment record has made him a cult figure popularly known for his seeming contradictions: a billionaire who has a modest lifestyle, a phenomenally successful investor who eschews the revolving-door trading of modern Wall Street, a brilliant dealmaker who cultivates a homespun aura.

Where Are the Customers' Yachts?: or A Good Hard Look at Wall Street

Humorous and entertaining, this book exposes the folly and hypocrisy of Wall Street. The title refers to a story about a visitor to New York who admired the yachts of the bankers and brokers. Naively, he asked where all the customers' yachts were? Of course, none of the customers could afford yachts, even though they dutifully followed the advice of their bankers and brokers. Full of wise contrarian advice and offering a true look at the world of investing, in which brokers get rich while their customers go broke.

What separates the world's top traders from the vast majority of unsuccessful investors? Jack Schwager sets out to answer this question in his interviews with superstar money-makers including Bruce Kovner, Richard Dennis, Paul Tudor Jones, Michel Steinhardt, Ed Seykota, Marty Schwartz, Tom Baldwin, and more in Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders.

The Little Book That Still Beats the Market

Now, with a new Introduction and Afterword for 2010, The Little Book that Still Beats the Market updates and expands upon the research findings from the original book. Included are data and analysis covering the recent financial crisis and model performance through the end of 2009. In a straightforward and accessible style, the book explores the basic principles of successful stock market investing and then reveals the author’s time-tested formula....

The Road to Ruin: The Global Elites' Secret Plan for the Next Financial Crisis

Since 2014, international monetary agencies have been issuing warnings to a small group of finance ministers, banks, and private equity funds: The US government's cowardly choices not to prosecute J.P. Morgan and its ilk and to bloat the economy with a $4 trillion injection of easy credit are driving us headlong toward a cliff. As Rickards shows in this frightening, meticulously researched book, governments around the world have no compunction about conspiring against their citizens.

Amazon Customer says:"worth reading for those interested in economics"

On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System

From the man who was in the very middle of this perfect economic storm, On the Brink is Paulson's fast-paced retelling of the key decisions that had to be made with lightning speed. Paulson puts the listener in the room for all the intense moments as he addressed urgent market conditions, weighed critical decisions, and debated policy and economic considerations with of all the notable players.

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

First published in 1923, this lightly fictionalized biography of Jesse Livermore, one of the greatest market speculators ever, is widely regarded as one of best investment books of all time. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is the resource that generations of investors have turned to when they needed deeper insight into their own investing habits and those of others. Listen to this work, featuring narrator Rick Rohan, and you'll soon discover your portfolio growing in new and unexpected ways!

The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse

Dr. Mohamed A. El-Erian, one of the world's most influential economic thinkers and the author of When Markets Collide, has written a road map to what lies ahead and the decisions we must make now to stave off the next global economic and financial crisis. Our current economic path is coming to an end. The signposts are all around us: sluggish growth, rising inequality, stubbornly high pockets of unemployment, and jittery financial markets, to name a few. Soon we will reach a fork in the road.

The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders

Some traders distinguish themselves from the herd. These supertraders make millions of dollars - sometimes in hours - and consistently outperform their peers. As he did in his acclaimed national best seller, Market Wizards, Jack Schwager interviews a host of these supertraders, spectacular winners whose success occurs across a spectrum of financial markets. These traders use different methods, but they all share an edge. How do they do it? What separates them from the others? What can they teach the average trader or investor?

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

Here is THE book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing and complete biography of the man known everywhere as "The Oracle of Omaha."

Publisher's Summary

"This book is in part a detective story. After 9/11 I knew, if I needed further reinforcement, that we are living in a new world - the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-correcting, and fast-changing than it was even a quarter century earlier. It's a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. The Age of Turbulence is my attempt to understand the nature of this new world: how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill. Where possible, I convey my understanding in the context of my own experiences. I do this out of a sense of responsibility to the historical record, and so that listeners will know where I'm coming from.

"The book is therefore divided in halves: the first half is my effort to retrace the arc of my learning curve, and the second half is a more objective effort to use this as the foundation on which to erect a conceptual framework for understanding the new global economy. Along the way I explore critical elements of this emerging global environment: the principles governing it; the vast energy infrastructure that powers it; the global financial imbalances and dramatic shifts in world demographics that threaten it; and, despite its unquestioned success, the chronic concern over the justice of the distribution of its rewards. Finally, I bring together what we can reasonably conjecture about the makeup of the world economy in 2030.

"I don't pretend to know all the answers. But from my vantage point at the Federal Reserve, I had privileged access to the best that had been thought and said on a wide range of subjects. I have not been inhibited in reaching for some fairly sweeping hypotheses." -Alan Greenspan

Never even took economics in school, but Greenspan talks about the economic history of America since he began his career after World War II. Fascinating even if you don't understand it all. Explains how capitalism really works, why it's the best system in the world so far, and what it is that keeps thirdworld countries so destitute (hint: unenforced property rights). The last chapter explains how gross domestic product is increasingly based on intellectual property rights, and what that means for our future.

If you are not very familiar with macroeconomics and would like to know Alan Greenspan's take on economic forces, principals and issues of modern times, this is a great book. You will find plenty of historical examples, future projections as well as eloquently explained economic and political relationships and trends that shape our world as we know today. Just as interesting is the authors' opinion of many prominent public figures he met during his career.
The book is intended to be an "easy read" for an average reader, so do not expect it to be of much academic value or any in-depth research/analysis that can be used for, say, investment purposes.
The narration is excellent, arguments are persuasive and easy to follow, the amount of material covered is also quite substantial.
Ideally, I would suggest this book to an average voter who wants to understand the economic impact of various public policies. Policies like "more taxes for the rich", "more power to the unions", "deport immigrants", "erect a trade barrier with China", "freeze gasoline prices" not only have a profound economic impact (mostly negative) on everybody, but also have a long history of prior attempts that we can learn a lot from.
Lastly, as much as Greenspan tried not to come across this way, but he surely seems to be riding a rather high horse. His opinion of self-importance and self-righteousness could use a trim..

I like Greenspan, but unfortunately this book is not worth the time. It's really two books in one, the first being a banal but amusing autobiography and the second an eye-lid dropping overview of the current economic state of the world. As is typical of former public figures with friends still in high places, the book treads very carefully - even in ripping Bush AG takes no great risks. This book is liking watching a team with a 20 point lead play out the fourth quarter - we're all good, let's not do anything to lose our place in history. Boring and safe. The last part of the book is so stuffed full of econ-speak that it will make your eyes glaze over - I started to understand why they call it the dismal science, even though I enjoy the subject. Geez, I even made it through the Wealth of Nations but AoT makes WoN look like a bastion of clarity at times. I'm going to take my nominal rate of time return and invest it in another information growth vehicle since this one exceeded the net present value of my current patience balance.

OK, I do not have an economics background, so the level of this discussion was perfect for me. I thought this was one of the most interesting and gripping books I have listened to. The narrator has a great voice which actually sounds a little like Greenspan.

but on to the content. Having been a casual, but not formal, student of economics since the Reagan years, it was great to relook at the last 25 years through the eyes of someone who played a key role in decisions made through the years. Furthermore, the economic insights were the insightful, considered, logical, and unemotional thoughts you might expect from Greenspan. As a non-economist but who has a great interest in human psychology and sociology, the level this book was written at was perfect. The interplay between psychology, economics, social structures, and politics is great great reading. i do not think this was targetted at people who are economics professors, and the book should not be criticized for this: it's targetted at the general readership.

sometimes you listen to books and you find that your mind has wandered for a few minutes and you have lost the train of thought. That never happened to me during this read. I found it rivetting.

This book gives great background on a man whose interests and talents are much more diverse that I'd ever realized. Contemporary issues and the evolution of our current financial markets are lucidly explained. To have the inside story from such an important character in our modern world is fascinating. Folks who don't follow the markets or the fed may find that this book gives them more information than they want and prefer the written version. I found the reader's voice a perfect match for the author and the material.

I can't say enough positive things about this book. In the beginning I was immediately drawn in by the description of the 9-11 crisis from an global and domestic economic standpoint.

I was inspired by the life, and humility of Greenspan. It was a true pleasure to learn more about him, where he came from, and how he lived such an incredible life.

I was truly educated on the macro economics of the world (I don't have an economics background). He presented history, present, and future predictions with a tremendous amount of background detail and supporting evidence.

Coming away from reading this book I feel inspired by the work Greenspan has accomplished; I have a better understanding of the workings of our government on economic matters; and I have a tremendously better understanding of globalization, free markets, and the future of the global marketplaces in our society.

I found it a pleasure to listen the the book from end to end and strongly recommend the unabridged version of this book, I can't imagine leaving out a single word.

If you pass on this book you will be missing out on one of the most insightful and educational works available today.

I really enjoyed this book. While Mr. Greenspan is not really a great author, his insight and perspective are unique and clarifying. Mr. Greenspan has strong libertarian tendencies, but demonstrates realism and practicality in his positions. He blasts tax-break and spend republicans just as strongly as tax and spend democrats (if not more so). He provides glimpses into how several recent presidents and their staffs have approached economics and the politics of taxation, interest rates, and spending. Even the personal vignettes were interesting enough. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the politics of US economic policies.

Who would have thought I'd find economics so fascinating? This book can get a little dense in spots for those of us who aren't economics experts, so I may have to give it a second listen. However, it was a fascinating slant on history, from the point of view of an expert who has lived through so many of the big economic events of the past century. Definitely worth the effort required to grasp the complicated issues. Highly recommended.

Remember the TV commercials in which a brain surgeon would reveal he wasn't really a brain surgeon, but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night? That was my reaction to "The Age of Turbulence". So no, I'm not an economist, but I did read Alan Greenspan's book last night.
Robertson Dean's narration was outstanding as he wove through a deeply detailed insider's history of the economy over the last 30 years. Not surprisingly, Greenspan shares his world view of macroeconomics by connecting many disparate dots to form a coherent view of the modern global economy. For me the book was filled with many "Ah-Ha" moments in which I finally understood the roots of some of the economic issues which shaped my own life. Many of the topics, particularly his predictions on the fate of disinflation were simply fascinating.
By the end of the book, I found almost all of my lay person-level macroeconomic questions answered. As I write this review, in the midst of the September 2008 Wall Street meltdown, I find myself compeltely at ease. Greenspan innoculates the reader with a long-range vision which puts the current irrational fears into perspective. After sitting through Greenspan's tutorial in "Age of Turbulence", you will see events like these for what they are: opportunities.
I was sad to come to the end of this story. I could have listened for twice as long and I hope the maestro thinks about doing another book.

I would give this 4.5 stars if it were an option. It would be hard to read without some understanding of economics, but he explains much of the complex data really well. He comes off as a much more interesting and well rounded person than the super geek I expected. I was very interested in the behind the scenes action involved in keeping the economy rolling.